"A million monkeys banging on a million typewriters for a million years will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare."

So this is it... my final day in Ayacucho. Today was a pretty easy day in class. My fourth years had their test today. A lot of them like to cheat so I had to smack the backs of a few heads.

I said my goodbyes to the teachers and La Directora. We had an hour-long conversation in her office. Probably would have been only half an hour but for my Spanish. =) She also presented me with a thank-you certificate with the official Los Libertadores seal. I'll frame it when I get back.

Now it's time to pack and confirm my flight back to Lima. Based on other volunteers' experiences, the airline I'm going with isn't very good at keeping their records straight. I'm crossing my fingers hoping there aren't any problems.

I'll be spending the day in Lima with Milagros, my Peruvian friend until my flight late Saturday night. She's meeting me at the airport when I arrive in the morning. That is so awesome of her as her house is kind of far away.

This will probably be my last entry until I'm back in Canada. I am really going to miss Ayacucho, and I'll never forget what I've experienced here.

Te extrañaré mucho, Perú.

I took the morning off to go with Betsy and Lauren to the girls' orphanage to help out. Betsy's class is comprised of three year-olds, and despite being a girls' orphanage there are a lot of boys there as well.

Those kids are soooo cute. And very affectionate. Their basic needs are seen to, but like many children I've seen they're just lacking someone to love them. I told them my name, but most of them called me papa, I guess because for many of them I was the first male figure in their lives that gave them any attention. Their teacher was so overcome with emotion that she had to leave the classroom.

The second half of the morning I spent with Lauren helping the five year-olds colour, do puzzles and glue things into their workbooks. This was the first time since I was in grade two that I had to peel dried glue off of my hands after school. I had a blast with them, especially "my girlfriend" who clung to me the entire time I was there.

I hung out with Felicity for the afternoon as her mom was busy making travel arrangements. We played basketball, went for ice cream and she helped me "get ready" for dinner, by doing my hair, choosing my clothes ("You're not wearing that, are you?") and accessories. It was like having all of the annoyances of being married, with none of the benefits. Heh.

Later on in the evening was my "Last Supper". When a volunteer is departing it's tradition for everyone to go out for dinner together. We ate at a Chinese restaurant. Bad service, awesome food.

Just about every time I've ordered a drink in Ayacucho they've given it to me warm, even when I ask for it cold. That is, until tonight. Our red wine was chilled. I can't win.

On the way home a few of us bought some more wine and we drank and talked on the roof under the stars. I've gotten used to ending my evenings like this. Next week if you see some crazy person in Oakville getting drunk by himself on top of his house, now you'll know why.

Today I made some awesome progress with my kids. They were learning how to respond to a question using the verb "to be". After seeing them struggle with it for the last few days I made them a little chart of what responses to use and when. After they realized how it would help them, the kids started "geting it". I could almost see the light bulbs going on above their heads. It was such a good feeling knowing that I could help them.

As I had the afternoon free I accompanied one of the other volunteers to FINCA, a microfinance organization dedicated to helping people (mostly women) start their own businesses. It was very interesting for me and was my first choice for my assignment down here, given my business background. Later we headed to the market where they were organizing individual craft vendors into groups, similar to guilds, in order to create some economies of scale and encourage co-operation.

The rest of the afternoon I spent at the boys orphanage. I had taken a lot of pictures and the staff asked if I would download them to their computer. I guess they had never been exposed to digital photography before, and they were fascinated with it.

It was a tiring day, but I really feel like I accomplished a lot today. I can go to bed happy.

Today was a school holiday for the big parade around the town square. All the schools in Ayachucho participate.

Before going to the parade I stopped in at the orphanage to hang out with the boys for awhile. I noticed yesterday that their soccer ball was pretty crummy so I returned there with a brand new one from Canada, and a pump to go with it. They went nuts over it. I didn't even get completely through the door before they started grabbing it from me. Wisely I gave the pump to one of the adults to keep.

From there I went to the town square to try to find my school, Los Libertadores amongst all the chaos. Everyone was dressed to the nines. I was in jeans and a T-shirt but the school Directora (Principal) was really nice and asked me to participate anyway, so I marched right along with them with the band playing and the mayor making speeches. I felt so proud to be part of the school.

Afterwards we all met back at the school for some lunch and drinks. I sat with the Directora and we ordered three very large beers. Then we ordered some more. I tried to chip in a bit when one of the teachers pulled out a 10 sol note (enough for three more). She just added it to the pile and we ended up with five beers! I thought we wouldn't finish them, but we did. After that, every time I thought we were finished one of the teachers would order another round.

One thing to keep in mind is that La Directora is a grandmother and she was matching me drink for drink. When I first met her I thought she was this complete no-nonsense person. Nice, but all business. Boy was I wrong.

I ended up stumbling home at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, sleeping a bit and going down for dinner still buzzed. It was such a good day though. Another one I definitely won't forget!

Since high-school is only half-days over here, I decided to use the afternoon to return to the boys' orphanage to spend some time with them. Cate had been telling me that they've been asking for me all the time since my first day with them.

I hung out with them while they were doing their homework and someone brought me a Jorge el Curioso (Curious George) book. I read it aloud with about ten of them hanging off me. I really enjoyed it, especially since I was picking up some more Spanish vocabulary for myself. I ended up reading two more to them, with some of them coming and going depending on their attention spans.

Later on we went out to the field to play some soccer. I asked where the ball was, and one of them told me it was over the fence, but that he would get it. None of this would normally seem out of the ordinary, but this fence was a seven-foot brick fence with barbed wire at the top!

This kid found a tree nearby, climbed to the top of the wall, picked his way through the barbed wire and then jumped over. He retrieved the ball, climbed up again and hopped over the fence. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like a prison escape or something.

After a couple hours of horsing around (I love horsing around!) I met the other volunteers back out the house for dinner and then we went out for drinks afterward. I am so liking the life out here. Too bad it has to end.

By the way, Kira makes the most awesome pancake bits... perfect for hanging out on the roof around the fire!

I had the day to relax again, but rather than sit around in front of the TV I decided to climb up the mountain behind our house to see the view from the big cross at the peak.

I went with Sarah and Felicity (the 9 year-old). It started out okay, just walking through the streets dodging traffic as per usual, but once we got to the base of the mountain the road got a little tougher. That's because there was none.

In the rancheros (little houses on the mountain) live some of the poorest people in Ayacucho. They're made up mostly of people who fled the countryside over the years in order to avoid the worst of the violence. It broke my heart walking through there as it's impossible for one person to help everyone.

As I said, it was a difficult climb and Felicity was fading fast. Poor girl. She wasn't really wearing the right type of footwear for the excursion and kept getting stones inside her sandals. We eventually stopped at a group of cabanas about a half-mile away. I continued on and turned around after a bit. I didn't quite make it right to the cross but I had gone far enough to see what I wanted and to snap a few pictures.

Back down the mountain we went and back to the house, but not before some well-deserved ice cream. I also bought an ice cream cake to have after dinner. The fruit basket we have after every meal is great and all, but after two weeks of I thought ice cream would be a nice change. I was right. Being in Ayacucho helps you appreciate the littler things in life.

After sleeping in today I decided on accomplishing three things: do laundry, get a haircut and finish doing another test for my kids.

Laundy I half-did... after waiting forever for the washer I found there was nowhere left to hang my clothes when they were done. Phase II (drying) would have to wait until Sunday.

After a bit of walking I found a hairdresser that was open. I was kind of worried about what she'd do as I had to tell her in Spanish what I wanted, but it turned out okay. For the equivalent of a dollar I couldn't really go wrong. I didn't see any Barbicide fo the scissors though, so hopefully I don't end up with any unwanted "guests" in my hair.

I spent the afternoon making the tests (for 1st year, 3rd year and 5th year), and I must say I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm supposed to meet with the Prof. Guerra tomorrow morning to go over it. As the teachers don't really have access to a computer I think she'll be impressed.

We ended the night on the roof around the fire making s'mores. Our youngest volunteer here, Felicity, is 9 years old and she had a blast. That is, until she had to go to bed when mummy said so. Poor girl. I remember how much it sucked sometimes being little, so in sympathy I team up with her sometimes to make things hard for her mom. Tee hee.

Today I showed up to school a bit early due to me reading the schedule wrong. didn't mind though; I just sat down on a bench and watched the gym class practice their high jump.

While doing that, a few of my first year girls came over to chat with me. They are so sweet... they greeted me with hugs and kisses and were so curious about Canada and what I did at home. Then one of them mentioned that the class was going on a walk to the big cross on the mountain and asked me to join. Problem is they were leaving Saturday morning just after six. I said I'd try.

After a salsa lesson in the afternoon back at the house we all headed out to a bar for drinks in the evening and then later to a club. I wasn't really expecting to be out at the clubs so I didn't have anything decent to wear, but it didn't matter as no one really dresses up for anything over here.

Except for having my jacket stolen it was a pretty fun night. Getting back at 4 AM though meant I didn't make it out to the trip to the cross with the girls. I'm sorry for disapointing them.

Today in the afternoon we had a guest speaker come in to teach us a bit about the history of Ayacucho and to share some of his experiences with us. Until recently this city has been in the center of a conflict between the Comunist faction called The Shining Path and the Peruvian military.

Both sides killed many innocent people. Families were separated, curfews were enforced and others simply just disappeared. Things only just now are starting to settle down, which is why Ayacucho seems to be decades behind in progress.

We also went for a drive to Quina to see the war monument comemorating Peru's (and most of South America) independence from Spain. The town is very quiet and relaxing compared to all the noise and dust of Ayacucho.

There is no one living here that hasn't been touched in some way by all the violence that went on, and I'll never take for granted again my life in Canada.

I took the day off work this morning to go to the medical clinic to have my finger looked at. It was getting worse by the day and I'd prefer not to lose it in Peru. Fortunately CCS volunteers regularly at one of the clinics so I hitched a ride with my roommate Jesse.

Because we volunteer there, the doctor saw me right away. Within five minutes there were two nurses poking and squeezing all the stuff out of my finger. I didn't mind the poking so much but the sqeezing HURT! After about 15 minutes of me feeling nauseaus they bandaged me up and sent me to the pharmacy for some antibiotics.

Now you Americans think Canadian drugs are cheap? I came out with a big bag of two different kinds of antibiotics for four dollars! I really don't think I needed so many pills but who am I to argue?

While I was over there I volunteered my time for the morning with the pediatritian during babies' checkups, weighing and measuring their hieghts. Some protested more than others. It was amazing how little the mothers knew about basic care for their children, especially those from the country. One even lied about having her vaccination done.

Despite having missed a day of school it was nice to get to help out somewhere else as well. As for my finger, it hurts a bit from all the poking and prodding but I think I'm recovering. It was my middle one, so hopefully it will be healed in time for my drive for work when I'm back in Canada.

I woke up Sunday with a puffy and swollen finger. I've had this before back home but it's always gone away after a couple of days. Now it's even more puffy and swollen, and even a little yellowish near the fingernail. Not good... I've heard of people losing infected fingers because they weren't treated early enough.

Today was Sophie's last day. She's one of the "old" volunteers who was alredy here when I arrived in Ayacucho, and she's a blast to be around. I feel like I'm just getting to know these people around me and they're disappearing.

We went out for a nice dinner though at a restaurant that specializes in chicken. They portions were so huge... and mostly meat. After dinner, most went home but a few of us troopers stuck around at the outdoor garden in the restaurant hand to kill some more wine while sitting around the fire.

I love this place.

So now that all the partying is done, it's the start of a normal week of work. I'm helping out with different sections across several age groups, so every class is different. Some are working on learning the days of the week while others are learning the past tense of verbs. It's kind of an eye-opener to see how difficult it really is to learn English, as stuff that is second-nature to a native speaker has to be fully explained to someone who isn't.

For example, have you ever thought about why the "ed" ending in "finished" sounds different than the one in "omitted"? I hadn't, until now. I think the teachers there are glad to have me though, especially for pronounciation.

I also created my first test for the senior students. I wasn't sure I'd have a computer to use but the CCS staff here let me use the one in the office as it's work-related. I'm giving it to Cati (one of the local English teachers) tomorrow to review and make copies. I hope the kids do well, otherwise it's a ruler across the backside from me!

Must... sleep... Ugh...

Never did breakfast a hamburger taste so-o-o-o good at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

Yes they have them here in Ayacucho but you have to look for them. Then again, has anyone seen the dog lately that used to sit on our corner?

There's kind of a running joke here in Ayacucho about Semana Santa (Holy Week) being called Semana Tranca (Drunk Week) as pretty much everyone in town gets completely pissed. This is especially true on the Saturday before Easter.

We started drinking around 10:30 in the morning to prepare ourselves for the running of the bulls. Y'know, liquid courage. And we needed it. It's much like Pamplona, Spain, except they only release one bull at a time, and unless they get free they're leashed to a horse with about 20 feet of rope to play with.

Not that there aren't injuries. A charging bull through an overcrowed street is bound to hurt some people. I was scred shitless of the first one, but after a few drinks I was going up to the bull with the others, and hitting it or pulling its tail to get it more aggrivated for the others down the street. I just had to make sure I stayed behind the horns, especially if it got free.

That night we stayed up through the whole night, watching fireworks and castillos (they went on for three hours!) and dancing and drinking in the streets with random people. It was so exhausting but so much fun. Finally the procession started at 5:30 AM, symbolizing Jesus' resurrection Easter morning. It was a beautiful sight even though most of us could barely stand up.

Out of all of my days in Peru this was (despite having to urinate against a wall in public at one point) by far the most fun and I'll never forget it.

I woke up miserable this morning. I was freezing, my back hurt and I felt sick. And there was still a full day of excursions left to go.

I sucked it up and continued along with everyone else. First stop was an watching alpaca (kind of like a small llama) sheared for the first time. Not very high-tech... just a rusty knife, a sharpening stone and a local boy to hold the animal down.

After that was a horseback ride through the mountains and the most beautiful scenery EVER, lunch and then the journey back to Ayacucho.

For even that short while I really missed our accomodations in town, especially the hot shower and my own bed. I have one roommate who doesn't snore, and plenty of space. I only wish the bathroom door closed properly, as with both of us getting sick it became a competition to see who could take the loudest crap.

Tonight was an important procession, and Pancho (one of our drivers) arranged space on the balcony for us so we don't have to deal with the crowds below. All I had to do was collect money from everyone and grease the security guard's palm. For once corruption is working for me and not against me.

Some of our group got on a local television station (the blondes of course) being interviewed as part of a news report on Semana Santa. I was off taking pictures at the time but I don't think it would have mattered as apparently I could pass for one of the locals here, and therefore not newsworthy.

We ended the night with a fire on the roof that fizzled out (we need more than just newspaper and logs) and more beer. After that I needed to get a good night's sleep for my run with from the bulls next morning.

Today was the first of two days of our trek trough the Peruvian Andes. After a scenic drive through the mountains we reached our destination, a tiny tiny village where the people still live like they did centuries ago.

They loaded our packs on the llamas as we needed all the help we could get. At 13,000 feet, an uphill climb can get hard. The weather started out perfectly, but the sunshine was soon followed by rain, then hail, then snow!

It was hard going... the snow made things really slippery, but I survived despite losing a shoe at one point and nearly falling in a river. After getting up and over a couple of the mountains we spent the night in a local one room school house about the size of my living room. It was just like camping... and freezing cold! I was actually sick because of that and not being used to the altitude. Not fun.

Through parts of the trek I was wondering why the hell I left Canada to trudge through the snow in South America, looking back it was a good experience overall. I just have to remember to pack more clothes next time!

So Rudy, the program director over here, decided that it would be a good idea for me to change schools. I didn't ask what was wrong with the first one, as at this point one was the same as the other.

The schools here are a lot different than home. The classrooms are situated around a courtyard and all the students are in red track-suit type uniforms. The teachers also have very little to work with. I'll be helping out two different teachers, one of whom barely knows more than her students. Teaching obviously isn't my profession, but there are a lot of things that I would change. It's also a good thing my Spanish is pretty advanced now, as the students don't know enough English yet to be taught in English. I just hope I can accomplish something with only two weeks left and few resources.

In the evening was yet another procession at the main plaza in town. This one was bigger than the first two and the crowds got really pushy. One of the other volunteers also had her wallet stolen. At least she was only carrying cash. I was tempted to go out for drinks afterwards but we had an excursion scheduled for early next morning and didn't want to sleep in. Yes... boring me!

Well everyone's first day on the job was today... except mine, because of Semana Santa my school is closed for the week. It wasn't a problem though. Volunteers are encouraged to visit other placements. I chose to go to the boys' orphanage with Cate.

We got there and were re-introduced to the boys. It's kind of disorganized; some were doing homework, some were out playing, others were nowhere to be found, and we had no direction around what to do. I was kind of warned about this before though, so we just sat and talked with the kids about what they happened to be doing at that particular moment. Cate had brought with her some books about her hometown NY City, which was a big hit.

After a half hour of getting them organized we all headed out to a fair. I wasn't sure how four adults and 20 kids were going to cram onto the small public transit busses, but somehow we did.

The kids were great. They were soooo excited to be out, yet they were very well-behaved. I never had to repeat myself if I told them to do something. They were really facinated with my digital camera and were taking all kinds of pictures with it. I'm still wiping fingerprints off the screen.

Placements are only scheduled for half days, but we're free to stay longer if we wish. Afternoons are usually some kind of cultural activity. I tried a Spanish lesson but it's below the level I'm at now and there's nothing higher. I'm better off just conversing with people around me.

In the night was the usual Semana Santa procession, but there was also something different: Traditional Ayacucho dancing. It was so beautiful, especially with the Quechuan music. I took as many photos as I could... hopefully I get time to post them here. I don't think I could ever get tired of this.

Monday was all about us "newbies" just arriving in Ayacucho. We had a brief history lesson about the city, some general info about the program, and then we were off to visit the places we'd be working.

The first place we visited was the boys' orphanage. They were so facinated with us over there. Once I started playing with one of the boys, everyone was crowding around us.

We also visited the prison (children of inmates are kept there until three years old), a medical facility and a soup kitchen. Again, the kids I came across seemed starved for affection. Just a 'Hola' and a smile would have them grasping your hand and following you around wherever you went.

After a tour of the city we had dinner and went out again to watch the Semana Santa procession and have a few drinks at the "Gringo Plaza". Not too late though... our first day of work started next morning.

The flight left Lima at 5:30 in the morning. Another early start as we had to be at the airport at 4 AM to catch our little propeller plane.

On arrival in Ayacucho we made introductions, had a quick breakfast and then I took a nap as I was totally exhausted.

Ayacucho is like no place I have ever seen. It is very poor, but the people are so friendly. We took a walk to the main square of the town to see the first of the Semana Santa (Holy Week... Easter) procession. People stared openly at us in the street, as Ayacucho doesn't see many tourists. Everywhere we went the kids would point at us and shout "Gringos!".

The highlight of the day for me was when I smiled an waved to a little girl of about 4, who was staring at me. She left her mother's side, walked over to where we were sitting and gave me a kiss on the cheek! She continued clinging to me for a few minutes before going back to her mother. You'd never see that in North America.

The procession (when it finally arrived) included people singing both in Spanish and Quechua, the language of the locals. It was a little bit chaotic as the main part passed us, but it was definitely an experience.

Afterwards we all headed back to the house and up to the rooftop for a few bottles of wine and a bonfire. It was the perfect way to end the day.

My flight into Lima was uneventful, but I've decided that I hate flying overnight. I can't sleep on airplanes and I was exhausted when I arrived at 5:30 AM.

I had been chatting occasionally with a girl from Lima on MSN. She's one of the random people that found me randomly since I put in my ICQ profile that I spoke Spanish. She was kind enough to show me around town when I arrived, as I had a full day to kill before the flight to Ayacucho.

She took me to her parent's place and introduced me to her entire family, took me out to a lunch and then we all went to see Ice Age 2 (in Spanish!!!) before hanging out by the beach for awhile.

She and her entire family were so nice to me; they treated me like a lnog-lost relative rather than a stranger from another country and I am forever grateful. I really owe them one and I hope to return the favour one day.

For those of you that don't know, I'm on my way to Peru for three weeks to volunteer as an English teacher. I'm going down there through an organization called Cross-Cultral Solutions, based out of New York.

I've enjoyed all the travelling I've done so far, but I thought I'd like to do something that wasn't just for myself, for once. I have no idea what to expect, so I'm just going to take everything as it comes and just go with it. Wish me luck.

Well again I've been lax in writing here it seems.

I just got back from two weeks in Vancouver, performing my first (real) audit. It was a lot harder than I expected. I knew I was in for some long hours, I just wasn't expecting how much work it would be extracting information from the people working at the sites.

What I failed to take into account was that most of the staff were clerical and in many cases there wasn't really any one person who knew how everything fit together. It made collecting data a lot harder. That, coupled with the fact that I was auditing both day and night shifts meant that one of the nights I got back to the hotel after the next day's morning paper.

I did get to walk around Vancouver a bit on the weekend. Hung out at Granville Island, saw the Canucks play as well. Now I'm just trying to get back to a normal sleeping pattern. Late nights combined with daylight savings time and jet lag is making it difficut.

Now just a few days before I'm off galavanting again. This time I'm spending three weeks in Peru... leaving this Friday.